


Curious Jane

by Rozilla



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard, Awesome Jane Foster, F/M, Jane Foster Loves Science, Women Being Awesome, the hall of science, Ásgarðr | Asgard (realm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozilla/pseuds/Rozilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane gets to swan around the Hall of Science and asking questions whilst the women running the place look on in amazement/bemused curiosity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curious Jane

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't great, but it's like an... unblocking? I promise to do better. Kudos to Skuttlebutts on tumblr for the idea about putting Jane in adapted children's dresses since she be SHORT.  
> Plus I wrote a post about this on tumblr and I needed to type it up. So there.

The Hall of Science was where Jane spent most of her time when she wasn’t with Thor and it was the domain of the _vǫlur._ They were women of varying ages, heritage, heights and builds and all dressed in the same style of gown as the Healers ( _læknar_ \- Aesir was a difficult language to master) but cast in glittering autumn hues as opposed to the blues and golds of the _læknar_. It had taken Jane a few days to get the hang of using Asgard’s library, since it was all stored either in huge heavy tomes that held moving images or in beams of hard light that reached from floor to ceiling.

‘It’s like Edgar Rice Burroughs had redesigned Tony Stark’s Server Warehouse then built it in Eternia!’

They smiled indulgently, and offered their services where they could. Most of the first few days were spent teaching her how to use the beams- though she had already got the hang of the basics.

‘Gliding your fingers through warm light and shape definitely has the edge over burning your fingers on a frankensteined motherboard for the umpteenth time,’ she declared. The only time she needed their help for very long was with translating the written works, which was time consuming on her own, even with a device that helped interpret the runes into English. It seemed pointless to scan each page, when one of the _vǫlur_ would come along and translate it for her.

The _vǫlur_ looked at her as if she were a precocious child toying with her parent’s tools (a look Jane was familiar with, since once upon a time she _was_ that precocious child). It did not help matters that the mortal had to wear gowns adapted from those worn by children and young women, given how much shorter and slighter she was compared to the Aesir. Eventually she was gifted brand new garments to her measured, which came in dark blues and violets, dotted with stars that shimmered when she moved- a gift from the Prince no doubt. Her hair was worn loose aside from a little braid across her crown that kept strands from falling in front of her face. She flittered to and fro as they watched, agape, from respectful distances.

 

At one point, Jane had expressed surprise at how many women on Asgard worked in medicine, magic and knowledge- all fields that were dominated mostly by men on Midgard. Science and magic were interchangeable on Asgard and those who practised it were almost entirely women. In fact, it seemed men studying those fields was considered taboo.

‘So that explains why Thor was not at all surprised by my job…’

They promised to show her their academies, where young women were trained from a young age in their various fields and they were surprised when her eyes had lit up at the prospect.

 

The _vǫlur_ were curious themselves about Jane and her equipment, the half gutted telescopes, the half dozen Raspberry Pi powered spectrographs (with touch screens covered in fingerprints) and a laptop held together with duct tape. Not to mention the notebooks scattered around her as if someone had carelessly dropped them. They had let her wheel in a whiteboard (brought from Earth), that was now covered in printouts, photographs, post-it notes and her indecipherable scribbles. Every so often she would get up, with half an eye still kept on her book, whiteboard pen out-stretched until she reached the board and wrote something- only to stop, curse, then rub it out and go back to her place. The _vǫlur_ took some interest in her equations, since they looked close to Aesir runes, but for over a week, they kept their distance, unsure what the etiquette should be with the… ‘intended’ (as yet, they had no other ‘appropriate’ title for her) of their crown Prince.

Eventually, the stares and distance became halting conversation. It consisted mostly of Jane asking questions and the _vǫlur_ giving rather singular answers.

‘So, the Realms move around the central trunk?’ Jane asked.

‘Yes Lady Jane.’

‘The tree _just_ refers to the shape of the Cosmos.’

‘Yes Lady Jane.’

‘I know it sounds obvious, but my ancestors did take it literally…’

‘Yes Lady Jane.’

An hour passed.

‘So does this,’ Jane gestured to the vast tree in the centre of the Hall of Science, surrounded by its beams of light and the hovering portals to each Realm ‘simulate the movement the Realms, or is it _connected_ to Yggdrasil?’   

‘Connected Lady Jane, it moves with the Realms by the All Father’s magic.’

‘So… that must mean this tree has it’s own orbit? But it doesn’t affect us? Is it just connected to those portals? Is that why we’re not being sucked into it?’

‘Yes Lady Jane.’

More scanning, more scribbling, more equations.

‘So, those portals- are they _actually_ portals, like the ones at the Convergence, or are they just windows?’

‘Windows Lady Jane, we can see them, but they cannot see us.’

‘So more like two-way mirrors… interesting.’

 

Soon, the sun would begin to set and Prince Thor would arrive to drag Lady Jane to dinner, looking misty eyed and thoroughly love sick as she would explain to him what she had been doing all day. The _vǫlur_ would promise to leave her equipment untouched and, with permission from the All Father (who seemed surprisingly willing to let this mortal tinker and explore) would try to find more books that might help Jane in her work. The _vǫlur_ (as one) seemed happy to tolerate her, since, aside from the fact she was clearly valued by Asgard’s beloved Prince and most respected warrior, she was far too fascinating.

She was a curiosity, and it was their jobs, their own callings, to investigate the curious.


End file.
